Posts by Chris Varrone | The Green Economy Post: Green Careers, Green Business, Sustainability

Natural Gas Complements Wind & Solar — Or Does It?

By Chris Varrone on June 8, 2011 Comments Off on Natural Gas Complements Wind & Solar — Or Does It? balancing area, Carnegie Mellon, Chris Varrone, Christopher Mims, clean energy, Demand Side Management, energy, energy storage, fossil fuels, Fracking, gas turbine, GE, General Electric, grid, grid operators, HVDC, interconnects, Jeff Immelt, natural gas, Paulina Jaramillo, renewable energy, RenewElec, shale gas, solar power, transmission, UHV, variability, wind, wind energy, wind energy intermittency, wind forecast data, wind intermittency, wind power

This post looks at the message promoted by the gas industry that natural gas is the necessary complement to renewables such as solar and wind, because the latter are variable and thus need a backup power source that can quickly be brought on line. There are other and perhaps even better ways of addressing variability that also need looking at.

Why Wind Intermittency Is Not a Big Deal

By Chris Varrone on May 23, 2011 7 Comments American Wind Energy Association, ancillary services, capacity, Chris Varrone, cleantech, Denise Bode, Denmark, DOE, electric grid, electric utility, fossil fuel generation, FOX-TV, green economy, intermittency, Iowa, John Muir Trust, Manhattan Institute, power reliability, renewable energy, Robert Bryce, Stuart Varney, Stuart Young Consulting study, variability, wind, wind energy, wind power, wind turbine

This post answers the recently much hyped focus on wind’s variability problem, quantifying it in clear cost terms that put it in perspective. The post helps clarify the differences between energy, capacity and the ancillary services surrounding ensuring capacity and goes on to answer some of the other related problems that have been alleged for wind energy as its penetration level increases.